The number of patients who have been involved in safety incidents while undergoing NHS treatment has risen by 12% in six months.
The National Patient Safety Agency released new figuresrevealing that 459,500 people were affected between 1 October 2008 and 31 March 2009 in England.
The data also showed that 5,700 patients experienced serious harm or died because of mistakes and near misses.
The NPSA said the rise was due to improved reporting. Overall, in 303,016 (66%) of the cases no harm came to the patient and in 122,246 (27%) there was low harm.
A further breakdown showed 28,521 (6%) of incidents ended in moderate harm and 5,717 (1%) resulted in severe harm or death.
Thirty two per cent of reports were accidents involving patients that could have been avoided, followed by errors or near misses with treatments or procedures (10.1%) and medication (9.4%).
Read more at HSJ.
Tags: Patient safety
